In case you’ve missed it, the fantasy legends Terry Brooks and Patrick Rothfuss have been interviewing each other on their websites throughout July, and it makes for some very compelling reading . . .
My personal highlights include Terry describing himself as being like the OCD-ridden TV detective Monk, and where Pat talks about skipping his writing teacher’s class to go on a date with that same teacher’s daughter. Very sneaky indeed.
Check out part one here on Terry’s site. Also, check out this awesome cartoon of the two of them.
Don’t forget also that Terry’s conclusion to the Legends of Shannara duology, The Measure of the Magic(UK | ANZ), is released tomorrow in paperback! Read an extract here. And here’s what fans have been saying on online retailer sites about the book:
”Terry Brooks is one of the best fantasy novelists of our time . . . He does not disappoint his many fans with this latest book’ Dee
‘Terry Brooks continues to be my longest standing favourite author’ S. Wilson
‘This is a really great series of books that have haunting and fleeting references to present worldwide problems. Long may he keep on writing these great books’ Colin L. Williams
There’s also not long to wait now until Terry’s brand new series begins with The Dark Legacy of Shannara:Wards of Faerie(UK | ANZ) – released 23rd August.
If you like what you hear above, this will a great place for any new readers to jump in and experience the Terry phenomenon!
En garde! SHARPS (US | UK | AUS) is a new novel by the K.J. Parker featuring a high-stakes competition that will topple kingdoms. You won’t see action like this in the summer Olympics that’s for sure.
Publishers Weekly described it as “a ripping good adventure yarn, laced with frequent barbed witticisms and ace sword fighting… Parker’s settings and characterizations never miss a beat, and the intricate political interplay of intrigue is suspenseful almost to the last page.”
Collected here are five spoiler-free interviews with K.J. Parker about SHARPS and some of Parker’s earlier novels.
How does one create a superhero? Movies such as The Avengersand The Amazing Spider-Manmake it look straightforward, if not exactly easy. Hollywood would have us believe superpowers aren’t all that unusual. Perhaps I’m a skeptic, but I sometimes wonder if the difficulties in become superhuman aren’t underestimated just a bit.
After all, you can’t plan for a freak accident. You can’t plan on being bitten by a special arachnid, as was Spider-Man. You can’t plan to accidentally survive a massive dose of gamma radiation, like the Hulk. You can’t plan to be born of Asgard, like Thor. Most of us will never have the opportunity to volunteer for an experimental super-soldier program, as did Captain America.
But what about the self-made superheroes? Those who deliberately transcend their limitations, using technology and (frankly) vast piles of money? Well, as much as I’d like to become Iron Man, I’m not a supergenius billionaire industrialist with massive technological resources at my disposal. What about Batman? I’m out of luck there, too, because I’m not a reclusive borderline-sociopath multi-millionaire with the peak physical conditioning of a dozen Olympic athletes combined. It’s safe to say these paths are closed off to most people.
So what to do if you’re cash-strapped but can’t rely upon serendipity to do the hard work? (more…)
Here in the Art Department, we work over a year in advance on our book covers, so it’s a thrill to finally be able to go back and share these process posts with you. Today we have a special treat, because last year when the fabulous illustrator Sam Weber was working on the Eli Monpress series for us, he invited us into his studio in Brooklyn to take a peek at THE SPIRIT WAR in progress.
I have really enjoyed working with Sam on this series because not only does he paint such gorgeous covers for us, he’s also a gigantic geek and loves to read the books as well. It really makes a difference in a cover when your artist really gets into the story and characters…especially in the case of Eli, master thief and scoundrel extraordinaire.
In the video below, Sam walks us through his process from thumbnails to final art. Even seeing him work up close, I still can’t believe he gets the amazing textures and luminosity he creates out of the watercolors. Let me tell you, if you are not an artist or have never tried painting in any medium, never mind watercolors, you have no idea how unforgiving a medium it can be.
I know the sketches and stages he shows go by pretty quickly in the video, so I’ll post a bunch of the cover stages so you can see what he’s describing up close. Enjoy! And look forward to part two, when we move past the process of physically creating the cover, and reveal how big of a geek Mr. Weber really is.
After the jump, see the process images up close and personal… (more…)
Ian Tregillis’s debut fantasy novel BITTER SEEDS (UK | ANZ) is a sinister reimagining of World War II events. In this supernatural alternate history, British forces use dark magics to hold back an invading army of Nazi superhumans. Orbit’s James Long put some questions to Ian on where he got his ideas from . . .
The premise of Bitter Seeds – Nazi super soldiers versus occult powers conjured up by British Warlocks – is unusual, to say the least! What was the original inspiration behind the story?
A number of years ago, around 2002 or 2003, I read a magazine article about a little-known Allied secret project during the Second World War called Project Habakkuk. Habakkuk was conceived during the height of the Battle of the Atlantic, when German wolf packs were destroying Allied shipping convoys. The idea – and this is one of those wonderful places where truth is so much stranger than fiction – was to build ships out of ice. It sounds mad but it’s actually a rather clever idea! Alas, for various reasons the project never made it past the prototype stage (Maybe because it is just a little bit mad.)
But I couldn’t get that image out of my head, of vast bergships plying the North Atlantic and changing the course of the war. So I began to wonder how the Axis might have responded if Habakkuk had been a success. A few days later, as I was driving to work, the answer hit me out of the blue: obviously, Ian, the Germans would have sent a pyrokinetic spy to sabotage the shipyards . . .
The ice ship never made it into Bitter Seeds, but the pyrokinetic SS agent did. (more…)
Don’t forget that Helen, with her epic fantasy novel THE HEIR OF NIGHT, is one of five authors shortlisted for the David Gemmell Morning Star Award for Best Fantasy Newcomer and that you can still get your votes in here until 12 Noon GMT 31st May.
Orbit authors N. K. Jemisin and Brent Weeks have also taken part in Reddit AMAs recently, and it looks like they had a great time of it!
At the end of last year, we here at Orbit received a very exciting treat in our inboxes . . . a new manuscript from the critically acclaimed David Brin.
Author of the classic UPLIFT series, EARTH and THE POSTMAN (made into a major motion picture), he’s widely lauded not just for writing thrillingly addictive science fiction, but also for his track record for accurately predicting the future within his novels.
It’s been ten years since the release of David’s last book, so the arrival of the manuscript for EXISTENCE (UK | ANZ) really was quite an event. And it’s no exaggeration to say that this could well be his pièce de resistance.
It’s an edge-of-your-seat novel of the near-future, where discovery of an alien artefact throws the world into chaos. The absolute compelling nature of this book, and the sheer breadth and brilliance of the ideas expressed within it made me want to find out more about David’s thought processes behind it (beyond the usual questions I’d ask as part of our author/editor relationship!). Read on for an insight into what lead to its creation . . .
David Brin - photo by Cheryl Brigham
AG: Despite your incredible success as a writer, you’ve mentioned elsewhere that being an author wasn’t your first career of choice. Tell us more?
DB: Writing was the first truly verifiable, repeatable and effective form of magic. Picture how it must have impressed ancient people to look at marks – on papyrus or clay – and know they conveyed the words of scribes and kings long dead. Knowledge, wisdom and art could finally accumulate, and death was robbed some of its sting. Writing still is magical. To create strings of black squiggles that millions of others can skillfully de-code with just their eyes – into emotions and thoughts, or the struggles of believable characters.
Still, every culture had storytellers. I was drawn toward a much newer kind of profession, that only gained real momentum the last few generations. Science. A shared endeavor to find out what is true, despite our preconceptions. Wow, that too is amazing! And I managed to contribute a few new bits of knowledge.
Still, when a chance came along to combine the two? Who wouldn’t grab such an opportunity?
AG: It’s been almost a decade since the release of your last novel. Have scientific developments over the last 10 years forced you at all to reassess the vision of the future you’ve held in previous books?
DB: Well of course. But remember, good science fiction isn’t about any static view. It should offer thought experiments about change. How it transforms real societies and realistic characters. Change has been the one, great constant of modernity and its rate is accelerating. Many of our social and political squabbles spiral around this one fact. A lot of folks don’t like the staccato pace of disruptions and new ideas, even good ones.
But if we don’t poke ahead, peering into the fog, how will we ever find our way? (more…)
This week saw Orbit UK’s publication of Jon Courtenay Grimwood’s second Assassini book, THE OUTCAST BLADE [UK | US | ANZ], sequel to THE FALLEN BLADE [UK | US | ANZ] which was released last year. The critics loved Book 1:
‘Brings 15th Century Venice to luminous life . . . the writing is elegant, the dialogue razor sharp’ – SciFiNow
‘A novel you can gorge yourself on . . . substance as well as style’ – Salon Futura
‘A twisted, Machiavellian, complicated and ornate book about survival and the terrible lengths people will go to for power. It may dress itself in the trappings of an angel-faced vampire assassin, but readers expecting Brent Weeks will be stunned to find Tim Powers instead. And even that is unfair – political, compelling, dark and urbane, this is a unique and stylish book that belongs wholly to Mr Grimwood.’ – Pornokitsch
Why do readers and reviewers love this series so much? And what makes vampires so appealing – even though the word ‘vampire’ is never mentioned in the Assassini books? What made Jon set his historical trilogy in Venice? For an insight into the workings of Jon Courtenay Grimwood’s intricate mind, we thought we’d share with you the interview which appears in the paperback edition of THE FALLEN BLADE, which we think addresses those questions better than we ever could! Read on for the full interview. (more…)
Last week we showed you the first part of this interview, in which Helen Lowe interviewed Ian Irvine about the publication of his brand new epic fantasy series, The Tainted Realm. This week the tables have turned! Click through to the interview to read more . . .
Ian: I haven’t done an interview swap with another author before, and it’s been a challenging experience to be put on the spot by Helen Lowe, who also writes epic fantasy and loves it as much as I do. But now I get to ask her the hard questions!
April’s such a great month for epic fantasy fans, with the release of both Ian Irvine’s VENGEANCE and Helen Lowe’s THE GATHERING OF THE LOST! We wanted to celebrate by doing something a bit different on the blog – and we thought: ‘Who better to interview a fantasy author than another fantasy author?’
This is the first part of that interview, in which Helen interviews Ian about his new series The Tainted Realm. Look out for the second part, when Ian interviews Helen, this time next week!
Click through to hear all about Ian’s pet hates in fantasy, how his background as a marine scientist affects his writing, and also just what’s wrong with magic in Harry Potter…
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‘This is a really great series of books that have haunting and fleeting references to present worldwide problems. Long may he keep on writing these great books’ Colin L. Williams
How does one create a superhero? Movies such as 
